The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Lesley Tellez

Chiles rellenos with panela cheese and epazote

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I love eating chiles rellenos, but I haven’t quite figured out yet how to make them a quick job. I usually like to stuff them with beans, and I always forget to soak my beans the night before. Plus I feel compelled to do the capeado if I’m relleno-ing a chile, and sometimes I don’t want to whip egg whites on a Tuesday, you know?

That’s what I love about these panela-stuffed chiles: the simplicity. All you do is char the poblanos on the comal, peel off the skin and scrape out the seeds, cut some panela slices and sprinkle them with fresh epazote, and then put them inside your chile. The cheese slices don’t even have to fit! Actually, it’s better if they don’t, because then the cheese gets sort of melty and soft out the sides.

You pan-fry the stuffed chile in a mix of butter and lard, or butter and olive oil. The butter is key — it draws out the poblano’s natural buttery notes.

I made these on a weeknight and ate the leftovers the rest of the week. My love affair with the Poblano pepper continues.

Chile Rellenos with Panela Cheese & Epazote
Makes 4

4 poblano peppers
8 oz./200g panela cheese cut into 1/4″-1/2″ slices
2 sprigs epazote (about 18 leaves), chopped
2 teaspoons lard
20g (about 2 pats) butter

Directions

To prepare the peppers: Rinse poblano peppers and dry them well with paper towels or a dish cloth. To char them, you can let them sit directly over a gas flame and turn using tongs; or, you can use a comal or dry skillet. I don’t have gas in my apartment (I’m one of the .02% of households in Mexico City that doesn’t), so I use the latter.

Heat the comal over high heat and turn chiles quickly, blackening all over but also making sure they don’t cook too long and turn slimy. Remove chiles to a dish towel once they’re charred, and wrap tightly. Let sit for 20 minutes. This makes the skin easier to peel off.

Peel the skin off chiles — DON’T RINSE UNDER WATER, as this mutes that lovely charred flavor! — and cut an incision into each one. Using your hands or a little spoon, scrape out the seeds as best you can. This is the most annoying part of the dish. Have I mentioned how much I hate seeding poblanos? Peeling, fun. Seeding, lame.

To prepare the filling: Take one slice of panela and sprinkle with epazote. Place the other piece of panela on top, like a sandwich, and sprinkle the whole thing with epazote. Place your panela-epazote sandwich inside the chile.

To cook: I had to do this in two batches. Heat a large (I used 10-inch) skillet over medium heat. Add half the lard and half the butter, and let melt. When hot, add two chiles. Cook until slightly darkened on all sides and cheese starts to melt. Serve with whatever you want — I used some leftover ayocote beans that Janneth brought me from Tepoztlan.

On the barbecue trail in Chinameca, Veracruz

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A big ol’ pile of smoked ribs in Chinameca, Veracruz

It was one of those only-in-Mexico moments: my friend Janneth, yelling into the open window of a stranger’s home.

“Señora!” she called. The living room on the other side of the screen was dark. But an older woman’s voice answered back, from somewhere in the depths of the house.

“What do you want?”

Janneth replied honestly. “We want to learn how you make your carne de Chinameca! They told us it’s very good.” (Important fact: in Mexico, no one ever asks who “they” is.)

We waited a few seconds. Then came the woman’s muffled reply: “I’m busy.”

We had ended up there because we’d become a little obsessed with finding out the secrets of carne de Chinameca, a type of smoked meat that’s popular in Southern Veracruz. I didn’t even realize that barbecue — American-style barbecue — existed in that area of Mexico. Carne de Chinameca reminded me a lot of what norteamericanos might eat on the Fourth of July: a smoky, crispy-grilled meat that tasted like coals and campfire and being outside. I had first tried it on a picadita in Catemaco and it was a jolt to the brain. This wasn’t the salty, cured taste of tasajo. This was different. The smoke enveloped you, and lurking behind it all was some sort of savory flavor that I couldn’t identify.

We first tried to get more information on carne de Chinameca at the Coatzacoalcos market. A row of young girls sold piles of the deep-red colored meat, and they waved floppy pieces at Janneth, Martha and I, with their hands sheathed in plastic grocery bags. “Pásale guerita!” they called, shaking the meat.

We stopped and asked the girls about the marinade. They shrugged, saying the meat was brought to them directly from Chinameca. A woman at the end of the row overheard us and said, “Tiene achiote and pimentón.” Annatto seed and paprika.

We wanted more information, so the following afternoon we drove to Chinameca, about 30 minutes from Coaztacoalcos. I sort of expected to see a Texas Hill Country-type thing, with smokers parked on the roadside. It wasn’t like that — Chinameca turned out to be a collection of well-kept single-story houses, a pharmacy, a taquería. The only sign that it was a barbecue paradise were two open-air stands on the outskirts of town, both of which appeared to be smoking meat.

The first stand, an open-air wooden shack with a cobbled-together roof, had an obscene cluster of longaniza draped over the grill, dripping and smoking and hanging like a fresh pile of entrails.

The owner, a friendly woman, explained that the marinade contained chile guajillo, achiote and pimentón. She first cooked the longaniza on the grill and then smoked for it two to three hours, using pine, nanche or mango tree branches. (That’s when I realized: that flavor I couldn’t identify probably came from the wood.)

She told us about the other woman in town who made carne de Chinameca too. But when we drove over there and Janneth yelled in the window and that lead dried up, we found ourselves back at the friendly woman’s stand, gently prying for more information.

She let us observe her two young charges, teenage girls, who stood with their arms dunked halfway into a big plastic bucket, a stew of achiote and raw pork and water. One of the girls, who wore big hoop earrings and a beaded necklace with a saint’s face dangling off the end, removed her hands and rubbed an almond-sized piece of achiote paste into her palm, almost like soap. Then dragged her pasty red hand across the surface of the ground pork. This would eventually become longaniza — the pork stomach casings lay nearby.

“You have to scrub the achiote like this, because if you just toss it in with the meat, it won’t dissolve and you’ll just have a little ball in there,” she said. Janneth and I nodded knowingly.

I wanted to take pictures but thought that would be too invasive. So we purchased a kilo of meat and said goodbye, the teenagers with their hands in the buckets still when we left.

At the next stand, only 30 feet away at most, another family grilled reddish-orange filets at a grill set back from the street. We asked the young woman at the rustic counter if we could go back for a closer look, and she gave us a curt nod.

About a half-dozen people stood around the grill, and they all sort of stared at us. Janneth, as usual, explained. “We just wanted to see how the carne de Chinameca is smoked.” No one said anything. A young girl of about 10 wore a taquería apron that was too big for her, and she helped an older man cut a huge slice of pork, holding back raw pieces of fat and skin back so he could make a clean cut. We looked for a few seconds more and went back to the counter, where we bought a kilo of gorgeous, reddish-black, fleshy ribs.

In the end, I didn’t get a recipe, but that’s not exactly what I wanted. We learned the basic elements of the marinade. We learned that you’ve got to get your hands and forearms in there, and that handmade achiote paste — the basic stuff, without any seasonings — is a key ingredient. We learned that the kids start young. And, because it’s Mexico, that people will usually answer your questions even if you’re a stranger knocking on their door.

Someday when I have a backyard, I might make my own longaniza and suspend it over the grill, letting it drip its own fat down into the kindling. I’ll rub the achiote with my bare hands, and I’ll remember being in small-town Veracruz and searching for a secret.

The foods of Southern Veracruz

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A memela at Tio Chon, a restaurant outside Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz.

Janneth and I had talked about me visiting her in Coatzacoalcos for months, ever since she came back from Coatza one day and started telling me about all the things she saw there that didn’t exist in Mexico City — tubs of small freshwater fish, crackery tortillas, and puffy, airy quesadillas called empanadas, which were served covered in shredded cabbage. Crayton and I finally had some free days in September so we decided to take a long weekend.

An aeiral view of Coatza from Mexico PostCode.

Coazta isn’t usually where folks stop in Veracruz. It’s an oil town along the state’s southern edge, and nobody really goes there unless they work for Pemex or they know someone who works for Pemex. There is a beach but no one swims in it. One person commented on my Instagram feed that I should visit other cities in Veracruz, because Coatza was bastante “feíto.” (Ugly.)

Coatza has nothing in the way of cool architecture or museums — a reviewer on Trip Advisor called their Museum of Olmec Culture “a pirated version of Epcot Center” — but it’s got good food, which makes it a perfectly reasonable destination in my eyes. After this trip I’m more convinced than ever that good food can be found anywhere in Mexico, even the most feíto towns.

The best of Coatza: gorditas and markets

Janneth grew up in Coatzacoalcos (her dad retired from Pemex), and she graciously offered to not only drive, but let us stay at her parents’ house. Our first morning there we drove to La Picadita Jarocha for breakfast, a bustling cafe open to the street. She insisted we try the balloony sweet gorditas, made with masa speckled with anise seeds and stuffed with mole. They arrived liked little bubbles, and then we cut them open to reveal the mole underneath. I cannot tell you how good these things were.

Look at that mole peeking out from inside. It wants you.

Afterward we wandered around Coatza’s market with Janneth’s mother Martha, a wonderful cook and local food expert. She pointed out more things I’d never seen: black camarones reculones, called as such because they walk backward; little nubs of homemade achiote paste, and hoja blanca leaves used to wrap tamales.

She also showed me the cracker-like totopos that came from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where she’s from. I’d seen them before outside the 20 de Noviembre Market in Oaxaca, but they seemed to be more prolific here.

Lisa seca, a dried salted fish from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Martha said you have to soak it in water several times to remove the salt, then squeeze on lime juice, chopped tomatoes, onion and cilantro. Then you grill it.

Oreganón, an intensely aromatic oregano.

Fresh camarones reculones, AKA “shrimp that move backwards.”

Fresh Mexican blue crab, known as jaiba.

Homemade achiote paste. This is not what you find in the supermarkets in Mexico City — it contains nothing except ground achiote seed and water, cooked in a kettle until concentrated.

Then we made a quick stop at Janneth’s aunt’s restaurant to watch the staff make tamales de masa colada. I’d never actually seen masa colada up close — it’s a tamal dough made from nixtamalized corn that’s cooked almost to a Cream-of-Wheat consistency.

A team of two women worked fast on the back patio, laying down an hoja blanca leaf, a banana leaf, a heaping spoonful of masa colada and then chicken, epazote and red chile sauce. Then they wrapped everything neatly and tying the tamal with a little knot. I tried to make one and the sauce oozed out one end.

Pretty little tamales.

We ended the day at an open-air restaurant with a dirt floor called Tio Chon, located off the old two-lane road to Minatitlán. Janneth instructed us on the proper Coatzacoalcosian way to eat camarones enchipotlados — place the whole shrimp in your mouth, suck off the sauce, then dip it in more sauce when no one is looking. (Her mom immediately told us, don’t do it that way, she’s wrong.)

Just seeing this photo now makes me want to suck off all the chipotle sauce.

I’m calling this a mole sundae: rice topped with fried plantain, egg and rich Veracruzan mole.

The Minatitlán market

Crayton was not exactly enthused to visit another market, but he was powerless against the trio of Janneth, Martha and I, who could together probably spend eight hours talking to vendors and scribbling down recipe notes. We visited another market — the Mercado Popular Campesino — in Minatitlán, a small town about 20 minutes from Coatzacoalcos.

The heat was stifling even at 10 a.m. Ladies in checkered smocks, their faces shiny with sweat, sold various vines and fruits and vegetables, some of which I hadn’t seen at the Coazta market the day before. We tried pópo, a beverage made from toasted cacao beans, rice, cinnamon and a vine called asquiote. One vendor was selling asquiote, too, which excited all of us to no end.

“Look, it’s asquiote!” I told Crayton. He just looked at me and continued checking his Blackberry.

I loved the tortillas de frijol, a crispy plate of a tortilla — sort of like a tlayuda — made from masa mixed with beans. Martha said you eat it with cheese and very hot salsa. I bought one and munched on it while we shopped.

Asquiote, which is chopped and ground and used in the beverage pópo, in Southern Veracruz

A jicara full of pópo, a beverage made from toasted cacao beans, rice, cinnamon, anise seed and asquiote.

This is the tricked-out molinillo — made by hand — used to aerate the pópo, which traditionally is served with a thick layer of foam on top.

Our Minatitlán breakfast. They were out of pejelagarto tamales.

Chile chilpaya, sort of like piquín but rounder and slightly longer.

There was one more food-related activity — hunting down the famous carne de Chinameca — but I’ll save that for the next post.

After only a few days together, I told Janneth and Martha that we should plan another trip together, to Martha’s hometown in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in 2013. If we do go… sorry Crayton, you’re not coming.

How to shape homemade corn tortillas, without a press

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I’m still not an expert at making corn tortillas without a press, but I was in awe of this woman at the Mole Festival in San Pedro Atocpan. Her name is Bertha Reyes Romero and she was the quesadilla-maker at one of the restaurants.

Her hands worked so fast that I asked if I could take a video, and she said yes.

http://youtu.be/SaI1nu89Q5U

Feliz Día de los Muertos!

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Day of the Dead is celebrated tomorrow and Friday in Mexico. This week I’m finally feeling the spirit.

Here is the altar I put up yesterday in our living room:

… and the Pan de Muerto I had for breakfast, purchased from La Puerta Abierta Bakery in Roma. (Verdict: thumbs up, although it didn’t have any orange-blossom water.)

Here’s our small-but-growing collection of oficios, which are palm-sized figurines depicting various professions. This year we scored with the chef lady and some skeleton dudes reverse-dunking a basektball. (Those dudes aren’t pictured, because they’re on the altar itself.)

And the skull-shaped earrings I bought at Mercado de Medellín!

Hope you all have a fantastic Day of the Dead, and that you remember your loved ones who’ve passed on.

More on Day of the Dead from The Mija Chronicles:
How to Make a Day of the Dead Altar
A Plain but Lovely Pan De Muerto
A Visit to Toluca’s Fería de Alfeñique (Sugar-Skull Market)
Traditional Day of the Dead Candy

The Mole Festival in San Pedro Atocpan

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Mounds of artistically arranged mole paste at the Feria Nacional del Mole in San Pedro Atocpan, Mexico.

San Pedro Atocpan is a little town about an hour southeast of Mexico City, nestled in the foothills near Milpa Alta. It’s actually closer to the state of Morelos than it is to the Centro Histórico, which is sort of crazy. I like it there. The town is quiet and charming, and some of the streets are cobblestone. I kid Crayton — or am I kidding? — that I want a country house there someday.

Every year, San Pedro hosts a sprawling, colorful mole fair on the outskirts of town. This year I was finally able to go. The fair is worth a visit if you’re in the city and don’t mind the hike getting down there.

San Pedro Atocpan’s Mole Fair

We arrived at 10 a.m., a little too early for the weekday. Most stands weren’t open and the morning air felt too chilly for my flimsy sweater. Within an hour, things were bustling. Vendors sold clay pots, wool sweaters (bought one), embroidered wool ponchos and jackets, and a hearty, nutty drink called atole de novia, a mix of toasted red corn, cinnamon, hazelnuts and almonds. (I scribbled down the recipe and hope to give it a try once I’m in town for more than four days.)

The mole lay in another huge section of the fair. (Tip: definitely bring walking shoes, because the roads are dirt and uneven.) Young people held out tastes of mole paste on plastic spoons, and plastic tubs overflowed with mole paste arranged in various artistic formations. One tub of mole was studded with what looked like Jordan almonds, and I asked the woman whether they came with the paste. She looked at me, sort of annoyed. “It’s a decoration.”

More than a dozen pop-up sort of restaurants sold a variation on the same thing — quesadillas made on blue, green and pink colored tortillas; mole with turkey, and in some cases, chile-rubbed rabbit. The stands’ rustic, open-air look reminded me of the ones you see crossing over the mountains into Puebla.

My friend Ruth and I ate breakfast and wandered through the fair, buying a few goodies but no mole since I already have too much paste at home. It was a great way to spend an afternoon.

How to Get There

The Feria Nacional Del Mole runs in San Pedro Atocpan through this Sunday, Oct. 28.

It’s located on the edge of San Pedro, just off the main road, on the right-hand side if you’re driving south. (You can’t miss it.) Driving there is easiest, but you could also take the Tren Ligero to Xochimilco and get a cab. My friend who lives in San Pedro told me yesterday (10-24-12) that the Milpa Alta pesero is temporarily out of service, because it struck a pedestrian a few weeks ago.

To drive, you’d want to arrive to Xochimilco and take a right on the road that says “Milpa Alta” just after the Centro Deportivo de Xochimilco. From there you’d follow the Milpa Alta & Mole Fair signs all the way to San Pedro. Google Maps also has accurate directions.

One of the dudes selling mole paste

Morning at the mole festival.

We had a squash-flower quesadilla for breakfast.

Nopal en escabeche, a warm, tangy cactus salad that we also had for breakfast.

Spotted on the way out: chunks of cooked agave. Yum.

Honoring the Virgin of Mercy at Mercado de la Merced

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One day a year, the vendors at Mexico City’s Mercado de la Merced throw a crazy, wild party to honor the Virgin of Mercy, known in Spanish as the Virgen de la Merced.

Her saint’s day is Sept. 24. On that day and a few days after, the vendors host musical groups inside the market and mount large, gorgeous altars dripping with flowers. The day also coincides with the market’s anniversary, the 55th this year.

I was lucky enough to visit the market with a group of photographers, part of an expedition organized by Luisa Cortés, a neighborhood resident. Cortés said the vendors save money throughout the year to pay for the altars and live music, which can cost as much as $300,00 pesos (roughly $30,000 USD) per aisle inside the market.

The altars lent an eerie beauty to what’s usually one of the most chaotic places in the city. Mostly the vibe was festive and fun. Vendors dished out enchiladas de mole and carnitas, and bands played ballads, cumbia, rancheras.

It was a spectacular day to be there. If you’re in the city on the same day next year, I highly recommend going.

Some photos of the day:

Racheras and squash!

A prayer to the Virgen de la Merced, asking for her to bless the market

Homemade chiles en nogada

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After taking two chiles en nogada cooking classes, I finally decided the time had come to make the dish in my own house. This was sort of an insane decision because I was working and traveling too much. And because, amid all that, I decided to go to Puebla to buy my ingredients.

The fruit in Mexico City was not satisfying. The stone fruits came from the States — ni lo piensas en un plato tan mexicano — and the Chihuahua apples looked a little miserable. So I carved out a few days and bought a bus ticket. At the Mercado La Acocota, I bought two kilos each of local peaches, starchy, crunchy apples from Zacatlán and sweet pears. I also bought 16 chiles poblanos.

The day before the shindig, with walnuts to peel and some last-minute work to take care of, my daylight cooking hours ran out. Which is why I found myself at 7 p.m. starting to prep an endless mise-en-place. At 10 p.m., the picadillo finally went into the pot.

My endless mise en place: chopped pork and beef, apples, pears, peaches, fresh-ground cinnamon and homemade roasted tomato sauce, among other items.

The next day — the day of the party — I woke up at 7:30 and peeled walnuts for three hours. (Crayton was sleeping most of that time or else he would’ve been shaking his head at me.) Then I charred my chiles and rubbed off the skin, and tried the best I could to remove the seeds without tearing apart the chile flesh.

My guests had started to arrive around 3 p.m. and a few asked if I needed help. (“No,” I croaked.) The only one I let into the kitchen was Ruth. She stuffed the chiles and dusted them in flour and generally made me feel like I wasn’t drowning in chile skin, seeds, eggs, and warming bowls of beans and rice.

Stuffed chiles, waiting to be dusted with flour

Finally, finally, it was time for the capeado, the frothy egg batter in which we’d dunk the chiles. My friend Carlos wandered into the kitchen and said, “You’re going to do the capeado?” Not everyone does, because the capeado is fattening and complicated. But I sniffed. Of course I’d do the capeado. The capeado respected the original 19th-century recipe.

After probably four chiles, it was hot and smoky and oily in the kitchen, and the smoke had drifted out into the living room. I didn’t care. I was channeling the nuns!

Frying up chiles en nogada, hot and sweaty kitchen be damned.

I didn’t get a photo of the chiles all gorgeous and golden-brown, but I did snap a quick photo of them blanketed in walnut sauce on the plate, before we devoured them all. My friend Daniela told me after one bite that I should open a restaurant.

The walnut sauce, as an addendum, was stunning. The nuns would’ve been proud.

Chiles en Nogada
Makes enough for 12 chiles

A few notes here: You’ll notice I used chopped meat, not ground beef or pork — I like the flavor better when the meat is chopped, plus it’s supposedly more accurate to the original recipe. I also did not use acitrón, the candied biznaga catcus that is typically used in chiles en nogada, because it is overharvested.

On the cooking time for the picadillo, I’ve heard about some folks who cook it for six or eight hours, making it a slow-roasted braise type of thing. I didn’t do that here, but I’d like to try it someday. In both of the classes I took, the picadillo cooked for about 30 minutes.

Lastly, I know I’m a snob about the capeado, but you don’t have to do that step if you don’t want to. To prepare the chiles without the capeado, I would warm them slightly in the oven and then top them directly with the nogada sauce. (Be warned that the sauce will not pool in a pretty pile on top, but fall off the sides.) The dish is traditionally served lukewarm or room temperature.

For the picadillo (the filling):
1 to 2 tablespoons lard
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
12 oz/350g pork loin, chopped
12 oz/350g beef rump roast, chopped
1 lb./500g tomatoes, charred on a comal, liquified in a blender and strained
1/2 cup raisins
8 oz./233g peaches (about 6 small Mexican peaches), peeled, cored and chopped
9 oz./250g apples (about 4 small), peeled, cored and chopped
8 oz./240g “lechera” style Mexican pears, or any other pears you want, peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup pine nuts
3 rings candied pineapple, chopped (this amounts to scant 3/4 cup)
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano (I used oregano I bought in Oaxaca City)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
12 chiles poblanos
3/4 to 1 cup flour
Makes enough to fill 12 chiles, with extra relleno left over

For the capeado (egg batter) and the frying:
8 eggs, separated
pinch of salt
1 bottle vegetable oil or other cooking oil that doesn’t burn when heated to high heat

For the nogada (walnut sauce):
4 cups whole peeled walnuts, soaked in water or frozen to keep from turning brown
3.5oz/100g goat cheese
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoon sherry
2 tablespoons sugar
Makes scant 1 liter

For the garnish:
1/2 cup whole or chopped parsley leaves
1 cup pomegranate seeds

Directions

1. To prepare the picadillo: Melt the lard in a skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and stir to coat in the lard. Cook until translucent, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir constantly so it doesn’t burn, cooking until aromatic, about 30 seconds to a minute. Add the chopped meat and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the meat changes color and has mostly cooked. Then pour in the tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Add raisins, fruit, spices, nuts, dried pineapple and spices, and a little salt to taste. Bring to another boil, then simmer for at least 30 minutes on low, keeping the pot covered. Taste for more salt. The picadillo can be prepared up to two days before and stored in the refrigerator, or even longer and frozen. I made mine the day before as to leave more time for stuffing/seeding/peeling chiles on the day of our meal.

Keep the picadillo warm while you’re finishing with the rest of the steps.

2. To char and seed the chiles: Char the poblano peppers over an open flame, a dry skillet or a comal. Wrap chiles in dish towels for about 20 minutes until the skin softens and is easier to peel. Working one chile at a time, remove the skin with the pads of your thumbs or a paper towel. Try not to scrape the skin off with your fingernails — not only does the skin gets under your nails, where it’s difficult to remove, but it mutes some of that yummy charred flavor. Also, do not rinse the chiles under water for the same reason! The chiles don’t need to be perfect. A few pieces of skin left over is okay.

After you skin the peppers, cut an incision in the chile (the thinnest/weakest part of the chile is usually best) from tip to end, leaving about an inch of space on either side so the filling doesn’t fall out. Then carefully remove the seeds, either using gloved hands or a small spoon. Try very hard not to scrape, or else you could end up dislodging a vein, and the chile will fall apart. Set all charred, peeled, and seeded chiles aside.

How to char chiles poblanos over an open flame

3. To stuff the chiles: Fill each chile with picadillo until they’re plump, but not impossible to close. The idea is that your filling will stay inside and NOT fall out while the chile is cooking. After filling all the chiles, dust them each in flour. Let them sit for a minute while you prepare the capeado.

3. For the capeado: If the beaten whites sit around for too long, they’ll fall, which destroys the texture of the capeado. So I’d start heating the oil to fry your chiles while you beat the whites. (This is especially helpful if you have an electric stove that takes forever to heat anything up, like I do.) I used a 10-inch skillet and about 1/2 cup of oil.

While the oil warms, beat the whites until they’re thick and fluffy and they stay in place even after you turn the bowl upside-down. Then, one by one, stir in the yolks, mixing just until the yolk is completely integrated. Hopefully by this time the oil is hot hot hot, so when you drop in a teensy piece of egg batter, it sizzles.

4. To fry the chiles: OJO: The chiles fry VERY quickly and they’ll burn if you don’t have a constant eye on them. So this is not a good time to go have a glass of wine, wash dishes, fiddle with the radio, etc.

Prepare a baking sheet lined with several layers of paper towels, and have a large cooking spoon and two spatulas at the ready. Hold one flour-dusted chile by its stem and upper edge and carefully dunk it into your bowl of egg batter. (Sometimes a scooping motion works best.) Then quickly place the chile in the hot pan of oil. It should bubble and sizzle immediately. Slather on a little extra egg batter on top so you no longer see any of the chile’s green skin.

Once the chile is completely swaddled in egg batter, use a spoon to bathe the chile in extra oil from the pan, until the chile turns a light golden-brown. This should take perhaps 10 seconds. Then use two spatulas — one for each side of the chile — to carefully turn the chile over, wrapping its eggy coat around itself, so it cooks on the other side. Cook for about 10 to 20 seconds more on the other side and remove to the paper-towel lined tray. Repeat with other chiles, adding more oil as needed. Let chiles rest while you prepare the sauce.

5. To prepare the nogada sauce: I did this in batches. Place 2 cups of walnuts in the blender jar with half the goat cheese, 1/4 cup milk and 1 tablespoon sugar. Blend on high, stopping a few times to stir and dislodge the walnut bits from the blender blades. Add one more tablespoon of milk or a little more if necessary. (You don’t want the sauce too watery or thin.) You could also add more sugar if you want the sauce sweeter — I like mine on the savory side. Finally, add 1 tablespoon of sherry and blend just a little more to combine. Pour into a receptacle and repeat with the other two cups of walnuts, and the rest of the goat cheese, sugar and sherry.

6. To serve: Place a chile on a plate. Ladle over the nogada sauce, until the chile is completely obscured. Sprinkle with parsley and pomegranate seeds. Serve at room temperature.

The life of a mole pot in Puebla’s Barrio de la Luz

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In Mexico, you can’t just use any old pot to make mole.

The best moles, it’s generally known, are scraped and mingled together in a clay pot, preferably one that fits an extra-large wooden spoon. The pots conduct heat well and the clay adds an extra touch of flavor. And in my foreign eyes, you cannot achieve the perfect mole moonscape without them.

A clay pot of bubbling mole, at Puebla’s International Mole Festival last May

In Puebla, the birthplace of mole poblano, many cooks buy their pots in the Barrio de La Luz, where artisans still make them almost entirely by hand. I learned about the the neighborhood during Puebla’s International Mole Festival last May. A video had been filmed in one of the barrio’s workshops and it traced the pot-making process almost from beginning to end — from soaking the dirt and kneading it, to firing it in an oven. Watching the video gave me chills.

(Here’s a link to the mole pot video — you really have to watch it.)

Last week when I was in Puebla to buy my chiles en nogada ingredients, I asked Rebecca if we could pop by the Barrio de La Luz to explore. We invited Alonso Hernandez of Mesón Sacristía to join us. He’s one of my favorite Puebla gastronomic historians and one of my favorite people in general.

We ventured out early one morning with Alonso leading the way. We stopped at a doorway clustered with glazed mole pots, and an older gentleman welcomed us as if it were common for strangers to show up unannounced. He led us down a hallway and into an open patio, where dozens of unvarnished and finished clay pots jugs lay in rows.

This was a group workspace. Each artisan had his own small room to create, and they shared an oven. Rebecca and Alonso and I peered into each doorway and tried not to bother anyone. One man was making an incense holder, known as a sumerio, by candlelight. The pottery wheel squeaked with each push of the foot pedal.

In the back, three men loaded up a deep oven, hoisting mole pots onto their backs. Alonso said the finished pots could feed 500 people.

The beginning of a mole pot: clumps of dirt brought in from Amozoc, Puebla

The open-air communal courtyard

Making an incense-holder by candlelight

Mole pots resting before being baked

Loading a mole pot into the oven to be baked

Chef Alonso in front of the oven

I eyed all of the mole pots longingly. I told myself that it was not really my time yet, that I had a gas stove that barely fit a 3 1/2 quart Le Creuset, and what was I going to do with a mole pot that fed 500? “Someday,” I told Alonso and Rebecca, “I am going to have my mole pot in my backyard, and I’m going to have massive parties and feed everyone.” They smiled at me.

That day I learned something new about mole — the love in this dish starts with the pot. Way before toasting and grinding and frying the chiles, and grinding the peanuts into powder, and charring the tomatoes until they turn into soft, mushy pulp, there is clay that was physically stepped on by human feet, kneaded by human hands and carried to an oven on a man’s back.

The pot demands our respect, too.

A mole pot waits to be baked in Puebla’s Barrio de la Luz.

How to peel walnuts for chiles en nogada, 19th-century nun style

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My freshly peeled walnuts, mixed with my own blood, sweat and tears

Once I decided I was going to make homemade chiles en nogada this year, I became obsessed with peeling my own walnuts.

Skinless, pristine walnuts are a requirement for the nogada, the creamy sauce that covers the Poblano pepper. The sauce must be white to reflect one of the colors of the Mexican flag; walnut skin adds a brownish tint.

In both of the chiles en nogada cooking classes I’d taken, we did not peel our own walnuts because it took too long. In fact, no one I knew peeled their walnuts themselves. I kept wondering: how long did peeling walnuts actually take? If I really wanted to understand chiles en nogada, a recipe invented by ascetic Poblana nuns who scorned idleness, didn’t I sort of have to know?

It turns out nature didn’t really intend for walnuts to be peeled. First you have to remove the shell without destroying the soft walnut pulp inside. Then you have to wiggle the walnuts out of their crevices, and delicately, with the agility of threading a needle, peel back their papery skin tiny pieces at a time. When — huzzah! — one large piece of skin comes off, it’s like putting the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle, or peeling an orange in one long, windy strip. There is satisfaction in peeling walnuts. But it comes in trickles.

In my quest to feel like a 19th-century Mexican nun, I spent 4 1/2 hours last Friday and Saturday cracking and peeling walnuts. That was the key part I hadn’t thought of: the cracking. By the time I had enough walnuts to make nogada sauce for 10 people (roughly 4 cups of whole and halved walnuts), my thumbs were sore and covered in scrapes. My eyes hurt from squinting at pinhead-sized pieces of walnut skin. I couldn’t even take pictures with my iPhone of my pile of walnut scraps and shells, because my thumbs didn’t want to move. It was like Blackberry thumb, but worse. Walnut thumb.

I will never do it again, unless I’m only cooking for four. But who makes chiles en nogada for four?

Here are some instructions, in case you’re struck with a bout of nunliness like I was.

How to Peel Walnuts
By a Girl Who Peeled Walnuts for More Than 4 Hours, To Make a Mexican Dish In the Style of the Nuns

1. Using a small hammer (forget the nutcracker, in my opinion, as it gives an out-of-control crack instead of controlled hits here and there), crack the walnut once along the thick border that runs from pole-to-pole. Turn it over and crack in the same place on the other side.

2. Still using your hammer, crack the walnut a few times along its smooth, rounded shell. Turn it over and do the same thing again. You don’t want to crack only on one side, as that will loosen the walnuts one one side and not the other, and it’s a big bummer when that happens because one side of your walnut WILL NOT COME OUT. (Alternately, once you’re comfortable cracking, you may hit the walnut multiple times in different spots, turning as you see fit.)

3. Once you notice cracks in the outer shell, peel it away with your fingers. You should see glorious walnuts inside.

4. Carefully remove the remaining outer shell and wiggle the walnuts inside, freeing them of the tough inner somewhat T-shaped membrane. If small walnut pieces break off, that’s okay. Let them go. You don’t really need them anyway.

5. You should now have large pieces of walnut, free of their shell and their tough membrane. Using your fingernail (and your reading glasses, if you need them), gently tear a piece of the skin off. Continue until all the skin is removed. It’s sort of like peeling a garlic clove. Take pleasure in it.

6. The naked walnuts should be placed in water so they don’t turn brown. Freeze them if you’re planning on using them in more than 24 hours. Note that they WILL turn slightly beige in the freezer unless you freeze them in water. I personally find the freezing-in-water step unnecessary, as my walnut sauce still turned out very white, from both the milk and the goat cheese.

I’ll be posting my recipe in a few days, as soon as my fingers recover.

Previously on The Mija Chronicles:
Kicking off Chiles en Nogada Season in Puebla
Four Chiles, One Day: A Marathon Chiles En Nogada Tasting in Mexico City
How to Make A Proper Chile en Nogada